Anya Slays the Easter Bunny
by marshmallowmars
Summary: Xander brings Anya to visit the Easter Bunny at Sunnydale Mall in an attempt to cure her irrational fear of all things bunny. Pure fluff and humor. An Easter gift for my readers.


"Wait, Sunnydale has a mall?" Anya asked skeptically as she and Xander walked towards a part of town she'd never visited before. It was a warm April afternoon, and the couple was enjoying a much-welcome lull in their Scooby duties. "I thought The Bronze was the only semi-tolerable hangout in this town."

"Oh, it is," Xander said, smirking. "Our mall's pretty much a joke. Most of the stores closed down before my freshman year due to, you know, the Hellmouth, and now it's more like an abandoned building with a Gap and a food court."

"So remind me why we're going there?" Anya was now fairly sure that her boyfriend was up to something. Before they'd left their apartment, Xander had grabbed her Polaroid camera off the counter, "just in case they saw something cool along the way." He'd always been a particularly lousy liar.

"I want you to see something," he said, and he was having trouble keeping his composure now. When she gave him a funny look and then turned away, she heard him make a noise between a man-giggle and a snort. She whipped around, facing him now, her arms crossed over her chest, blocking his way.

"Xander Harris, I'm not moving until you tell me why we're going there. You're up to something."

"Me?" Xander asked, trying to look shocked. "Anya, I can't believe you'd think such a thing. Don't you know me?"

She bit her lip then, trying to keep the smile off her face that was trying to make its way there. His "incredulous" face was surprisingly adorable. He looked like a cross between a hungry puppy and a slow fifth-grader in math class.

"I know you well enough to be positive that you're up to no good."

"Oh yeah?" he said, his eyes bright, almost smiling. "Would someone up to no good do this?" Without warning, he scooped Anya up and began running down the street with her in his arms.

Anya let out a loud squeak and started laughing, lightly punching Xander and pleading to be let down. After a minute or so, Xander obliged, but grabbed her hand and pulled her along at the same pace, now joining Anya in her laughter.

It wasn't until they were right outside the mall that Xander came to a halt. After the pair had taken a moment to catch their breath, he pulled out a bandana.

"Ok, Anya," he said. "You trust me, right?"

There was a slight pause. "Why?" she asked.

"I have a surprise for you. But if you want to see it, you'll have to wear this." He held up the red bandana.

Anya giggled. "I thought you got that cowgirl thing out of your system last night," she said, and Xander rolled his eyes.

"I mean as a blindfold, so you can't see it until I let you," he said, folding it over twice. "Ok?"

Although she felt a pang of worry, Anya really did trust him, and she knew he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her. In fact, he was probably planning to surprise her with a shiny new ring or a wad of money to spend however she pleased or something equally tantalizing. And if the blindfold was the only way to get it, she was more than willing to oblige.

She nodded, and Xander tied the cloth around her eyes. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

"Right this way, my lady," he said as he led her through the steel double doors.

Instantly, she hit a solid wall of fumes that smelled like a combination of lemon floor cleaner and the ground beef used for tacos. She cringed. "There's the food court you were talking about."

"Don't worry; we're not here for the dog food," he said, steering her to the left.

"So what are we here for?"

There was a pause. "Okay. We're here for a sort of…intervention." Xander's voice seemed to falter. He was nervous

"A what?" Anya asked. This term was a new one.

"Anya, what's the one thing you're scared of most?" Xander asked, still steering Anya to the left.

Anya shuddered. "That's easy. Bunnies." She spat out the word like it was a disease that might be contagious.

"Right. I figured that out when you saw a bunny on the lawn outside our apartment building and tried to convince the guy cutting the grass to run it over with his riding mower," Xander said. He was teasing her, but she could sense the seriousness behind his words.

"That bunny was out to get me! I'd seen it at least twice that week," she rationalized, her tone frantic.

Xander ignored her. "And I got kind of worried after that, what with Easter in less than a week and all, so I talked to Willow. She helped me do some research on the net, and we think you have leporiphobia."

"Leporiwhat?"

"A pathological fear of bunnies," he clarified. "And Will suggested that maybe you can overcome your fear if you're confronted with it severely enough."

"Are you serious? Willow can't stand me!" Anya said, yanking her hand away from Xander's. The worry was back, but by this point, it had turned into dread. She reached up to untie the blindfold, and once it was off, it was all she could do not to faint on the spot.

Only about fifteen feet away sat the largest mutant bunny she had ever seen in her life. His white fur almost glowed under the harsh fluorescent lights, and a sinister smile seemed to be a door to the horror within. And the worst part: on the rabbit's lap sat a little girl with blonde pigtails, and just beyond them stood a line full of children being watched by adults wearing pastel overalls, obviously the demon's minions. He was preparing a holiday feast!

Before he even had a chance to think of stopping her, Anya ran away from Xander and towards the bunny. Since the Slayer wasn't here, she would have to do.

"Run, children!" Anya yelled, waving her arms and charging towards the Easter Bunny. The girl sitting on the rabbit's lap started to cry, and Anya took her from the bunny, setting her down far enough away to keep her from becoming rabbit chow.

"You won't get away with this while I'm in town, Bunny!" she screamed, stopping for a second to rummage through her purse. "I've been on to you for years, and it ends here!" At that second, her hand found her canister of pepper spray, and pointed it at the Bunny's huge eyes. "Let's see how well all that beta-carotene serves you with this in your eyes!"

Once the bunny's fur began to turn green from the spray, all hell began to break loose. Parents were running away from the scene with their children in their arms and the kids who were left unattended began bawling. She heard a young boy say, through his sobs, "That lady's hurting the Easter Bunny!"

This didn't make sense. Had he brainwashed the children? Either way, she had to break out the heavy artillery. In one swift stroke, she broke off a prong of the white picket fence surrounding the rabbit's territory, leaned in and staked him right where his heart should be.

But he didn't turn to dust or begin bleeding or start to scream.

"Are you on drugs?" An angry voice came from inside of the bunny. Anya was completely bewildered. "Seriously, lady, you know you're gonna have to pay for the damages to this costume, right?" And off came the bunny's head. But inside it was the head of a pimply teenage boy who couldn't be a day older than seventeen.

She whipped around, searching for Xander, hoping for backup, for him to explain what had happened and to look as horrified as she did. Adrenaline was still clouding her mind, and she still didn't believe that the threat that the bunny posed had never existed in the first place.

And then she found Xander, right where she had left him. In one hand he held a stack of Polaroid's, in the other the camera, and he was doubled over laughing. Her cheeks got warm, and she found herself muttering apologies and stuffing her battle supplies back into her purse.

She ran past Xander and out of the mall, tears blurring her eyes. Was that Xander's idea of a practical joke? Because that was the most scared she'd been since the last apocalypse, and she'd just done a perfect job of proving to Sunnydale that she was insane. She slumped against the wall, sitting down on the concrete and putting her head between her knees.

Xander rushed out and joined her against the building. "An, I didn't want it to go that way, I promise. I was gonna try to get you to take a picture with him, maybe tease you a little bit, but that's all. I didn't expect _that_."

"I can't believe that you find my fears funny, Xander," Anya sniffled. "When you tell me that you're worried that your hair's going to fall out or that our relationship's going to end up like your parents' or that you're not powerful enough to be part of the Scoobies, I don't laugh at you," Anya said, not looking at him.

He moved a little bit closer. "I'm sorry. Really sorry. I shouldn't have been laughing. You were amazing in there. It doesn't even matter that the Evil Easter Bunny was just a teenager making minimum wage. You would have kicked any demon's fuzzy cotton ball tail with those moves."

Anya smiled slightly. "But seriously, you have to see these pictures," Xander said, holding them out to her. She took them from him and once she saw the first one, she couldn't stop laughing. She saw how she had completely stained the costume's embroidered eyes green, how the bunny had put his arms in front of his face when she'd lunged at him, the fierce expression in her eyes as she fought the ultimate evil, the horror in the faces of the parents.

"I'm not totally convinced that I'll be able to take bunnies seriously after this," she said, giggling.

"That's a step in the right direction, at least," Xander said.

On the way home, they encountered dozens of bunnies in preparation for Easter, from live ones on lawns to decals on shop windows. And, to Xander's delight, as they walked hand in hand, Anya didn't even notice one of them.

_A/N: This is the first Buffy fic I've tried, so I'm not sure how well I captured the characters. Let me know what you thought?_


End file.
